Tread on Trafficking

Ahhh life with baby.

Gabe is incredible. He smiles at the funniest things (like Justin Bieber and getting his nose poked) and he cries at the funniest things (like Aaron making faces at him). We have your typical baby woes but for the most part we're doing good. I'm definitely a little sleep deprived, but that's my own fault. I'm really bad at the whole "sleep when baby sleeps" thing. There's a lot of things to do! I want to keep up with the baby book, there are dishes, laundry, and oh yeah, a shower for me!! People who say that you have no free time as new mom aren't being totally honest. You have free time, you just have to make difficult decisions on how to spend it. Do I shower? Do I eat? Do I sleep? Do I do my laundry? Do I try to clean up? Exercise? Pay bills? And it's only going to get worse now that the baby is being awake for longer during the day. But hopefully that will also equal sleeping more during the night.

One thing I CAN do while at home with the baby is raise money. I'm participating in love146's Tread on Trafficking. It's a fundraiser for human trafficking prohibition efforts. Participants walk, run, bike, or swim a certain amount of miles and others pledge their financial support, or they can just go to the page set up for my personal efforts and make a flat donation. My distance goal is 100 miles (I have all month to complete this), and my financial goal WAS $200 but literally the morning after I registered I had reached beyond my goal (thanks if you donors are reading this!!!) so I upped my goal to $350. I got myself a pedometer to track my steps around the house and on walks with the baby and such, and today, at 4:45 I am at 0.12 miles...haha. I've got a ways to go.

I'm doing this for one big reason: I don't know of anything else I can do. The epidemic of sex slave trade and human trafficking is heart wrenching and devastating. It's a huge, HUGE problem. And because it's so huge working toward a solution can seem even bigger, the enormity of a solution can be intimidating. It leaves you thinking "yes, this is terrible but there's nothing I can do". Love146 is an incredible group that raises money and awareness and works to abolish child sex slavery through prevention and aftercare. Tread of Trafficking is just one way they encourage people to get involved in fundraising, or at the very least, raising awareness about this issue. I'm choosing to participate because I often feel so helpless and insignificant in the face of this issue, but this is something I can do to help, even if it's something small. It might seem too small to matter, but isn't a small contribution better than no contribution at all?

With that last sentence in mind, I ask you, if you're reading this, to consider donating something, even something

small. To make a donation go HERE. If you just want some information on the issue or want to find your own way of getting involved, go to Love146's website: www.love146.org

My Kid Gets Born

Three weeks ago I met the second most handsome and charming man in the world. He's a little short for me, but I got over that fast. Three weeks ago Gabriel Soren Smith finally made his first appearance and Aaron and I both fell in love.

Tuesday morning, April 26th, we went to the hospital at 7:30 to start the induction process. They started the pitocin at 8:30 and I began having contractions immediately. They were little at first but over time got stronger, though the whole time they were irregular. At about 11 I was given the go ahead to have an epidural. I hate needles. The drugs made me drowsy and I slipped in and out of sleeping. At one point when I opened my eyes it seemed like every nurse on the floor was in my room jostling me or adjusting knobs and wires and staring at the monitors. Once the nurses calmed down and started trickling out I asked what had happened. The combination of the epidural lowering my blood pressure significantly, and several intense, on top of each other contractions, had stressed out the baby and his heart rate had dropped. They got it under control and I guess it's not abnormal. The thing that made it scary was just not knowing what was happening when all the nurses were rushing around me. Other than that blip of excitement, things went slowly. My contractions became more regular, but nothing else changed. Literally. From the time we got there at 7:30 in the morning to the time we were asked to make a decision at 9pm, I had dilated to only about 5 or 6 centimeters (depending on who you ask) and I had come into the hospital dilated 3. At 9pm the nurse said that my doctor would be coming in to check everything again at 10, and that if things were still where they were and we hadn't made "significant progress", we would have to start thinking about a c-section. Sure enough, 10 rolled around and my doctor came in and there had been NO progress, forget about significant progress. She told us that the baby was totally fine, and so was I, the issue was just that his head was sort of cocked a little, like he was just laying with his head to one side, meaning not enough pressure was being put on my cervix, which is why I wasn't dilating. She said that although he was fine and I was fine, this wasn't something that was likely to change, and so c-section would be the way to go. Aaron and I were completely unprepared for a c-section. I'd spent weeks, MONTHS, mentally preparing myself to push a human being out of my netherparts. But I hadn't given a second thought to a c-section, a surgery. And neither had Aaron. We asked the doctor lots of questions and I will be forever grateful that she was calm and honest with us as she answered. She told us that though a c-section is considered "routine" it is still major abdominal surgery, and that the recovery process is longer and more painful than for a vaginal birth. She told us how many c-sections she's performed, how long it would take and what would happen directly after. She promised that my grandmother (who'd been at the hospital with us since 9 that morning) and my incredible friend Jennifer (who'd been with us since 6 that evening) would be allowed to break the rules and come into my post-partum room and see the baby even though visiting hours were long over. She told us we could have a little more time to see if anything changed, but that she felt strongly that nothing would. Then she left and gave us some time to talk about it. My incredible, loving, amazing husband cried with me a little (because I'm a pansy and surgery scares me and like I said, I'd had zero mental preparation time) and we talked about whether more time would make a difference. We decided that after 14 hours we wanted Gabriel to be born as soon and as safely as possible. So they wheeled me off to the surgery area and started prepping. Aaron held my hand and stroked my hair the whole time while I said silly, drugged up things. And then, what felt like seconds later, we heard funny little mewing sounds and my doctor told me to look to my right, and there was a nurse holding my gooey kid. "It's a baby. Does he have teeth?" This was my first reaction to Gabriel Soren Smith (about a week before I'd had a terrible dream that he'd been born with teeth and it really, REALLY freaked me out). Then they whisked him away to be cleaned and de-gooped. I saw him again in recovery and Aaron and I got to hold him and love on him for the first time. And we have both been totally smitten ever since.

Gabe is an incredible baby, we've really been blessed. I love every day getting to know him and can't wait for all his little milestones. Every day the weight of being a parent is with me, that the decisions I'm making better be good, that I've got a lot to teach him about being a good and Godly person, and that who he becomes will be a direct reflection of how he was raised. I couldn't ask for a better partner in that responsibility than my husband, and I am trusting God to teach us both how to teach Gabe everything he needs to know.

It's a strange new reality, being home with him everyday. But there's no place better. I have the two most handsome men ever living with me. It's a great life. :)

This is Gabriel's first picture.

And this is Gabriel today.

Gospel Bill Sang This Song

This isn't going to be long, mostly because I am stressed and tired and overwhelmed.

Today we took my car to get the front two quick strut assemblies replaced. Only it turns out it's going to be about $1000 more expensive than we were anticipating. This cost jump means a lot for us because, forgetting for a moment that we don't have the money to do that at the moment, it's simply not worth it. The car has sort of been sucking money from me for a while now and we both sort of feel like why put another $1400+ into it when so much keeps going wrong with it and for double that we could get a decent used car. We took my car home and are currently waiting because if we don't have $1400 to fix my car, we certainly don't have $3000 to get a new(ish) one.

It's entirely stressful and incredibly overwhelming. But not just because of the car. The issues with the car and the stress over what this means for me and my little family are kind of icing on the cake-o-pain. It's been a very long difficult year with far more downs than ups. It's been a defining year, the kind of time in your life that makes you wake up realizing that the buck stops with you. You're the grown up. But more than that, it's been the kind divisive, painful year that makes you feel a little orphaned. And that's a lot of reality to face (especially with the pregnancy hormones, haha). I love my husband, and I'm excited about our family and the baby. I can't wait to pass on traditions and start our own. But a big part of why I can't wait to create this family is because this has been the kind of year that makes me feel like I don't have one.

I'm not trying to hurt anyone in my family. But I don't think anyone in my family would disagree with me when I say that at this moment we are still mid painful transition. We don't look like a family. I'm not saying we never will again or that we won't figure it out and come out the other side of all this, or that I don't love anyone in my family, or know that they love me. But right now I could use somewhere to turn, a family environment to feel safe in, to yes, feel like the kid in. And at the moment that just doesn't exist. Which makes something as truly inconsequential as needing a car way, way more stressful (again, the hormones don't help, hah).

I've been on youtube all morning listening to various worship songs trying to find to get some peace and perspective and feel comfort. I ran across a newer version of an old song called "I Exalt Thee". As I was listening to it I started thinking about how so often we use worship for ourselves, we use it to comfort and console our own hearts. And there's nothing really wrong with that, the Lord wants to comfort us and to be our solace and give us peace. But I started wondering how often I turn to worship just as earnestly simply to exalt God, with no intention of getting something out of it for me. The answer made me feel pretty lame. I played the song over and over and just listened to it for a long time, trying to focus on exalting the Lord. Because I don't ever want to be someone who only uses God as a kleenex box or a teddy bear. I want to exalt the Lord. I want to be someone who praises God simply so he knows I am thinking about Him, appreciating Him and His creation and all He has done.

Interestingly enough after I spent some time singing this simple song, this straightforward message of adoration and appreciation, I did feel solace.